To get access to the virtual private server in the cloud from a Windows computer, I use two programs that need to be installed on the Microsoft Windows client: PuTTY and WinSCP.

PuTTY

PuTTY is a terminal program supporting the secure shell (SSH) protocol to establish a secure connection and provides access to the Ubuntu Linux console command-line. It is open source software and free to use.

You find the latest version to download PuTTY here: https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/latest.html

To access the cloud instance, you will need the IP address of your cloud server instance and the login information like user name and password or a key file with your private SSH key.

On the server, a SSH server needs to be active and running and the applicable port (the standard port for SSH is port 22) needs to be open in the firewall of your cloud instance.

On Amazon Lightsail, SSH is active by default and the port 22 is already open in the firewall. For your access you do not have a password but need a key file with your private SSH key. For more details, have a look on the Lightsail documentation here: Connect to your Lightsail Linux instance with PuTTY - Amazon Lightsail.

WinSCP

While PuTTY is a tool to provide access to the command line, WinSCP is the tool of choice to easily transfer files from the Windows system to the virtual private server instance or vice versa. WinSCP supports the protocols FTP and SFTP, it's open source and free to use.

To download WinSCP you find the latest version here: https://winscp.net/eng/download.php

To use WinSCP with your cloud instance, it needs to be configured accordingly. As it may use the configuration and key created for PuTTY, it's best to install and configure PuTTY first before you start configuring WinSCP.